Nostalgia never changes. In 20 years todays kids we will be lamenting how everything was better, more fresh, more fun and more innocent back in the 2020's.
I Miss the Old Internet (2019)
301–310 of 435 posts
Re: I Miss the Old Internet (2019)
#302Earlier quoted context omitted.
On the contrary, I feel that "troll culture" is (along with commercialization) one of the things that has ruined the net. It's basically a form of bullying, and over the years, as bullies do, they've steadily escalated in their trolling. Harmless pranks from the 4chan crowd morphed into harassment campaigns like Gamergate and Pizzagate, then to 1/6 [edit: the storming of the US Capitol]. Anyone disingenuously complai…
I'm sure I don't want to know, but what is 1/6?
Re: I Miss the Old Internet (2019)
#303In 20 years somebody will write an article about missing this ‘old’ internet from 2021. I wonder what they will miss.
> I wonder what they will miss. Being able to log in without providing you national ID number. And being able to run a public-facing server without a permit.
Re: I Miss the Old Internet (2019)
#304Re: I Miss the Old Internet (2019)
#305Earlier quoted context omitted.
Really. All right, I'm looking forward to the author of dickbutt stepping up and claiming what's theirs.
The author of the dickbutt (if he/she can be found) might easily sell the rights to their creation to a copyright troll for one million dollars after which my scenario could take place.
Re: I Miss the Old Internet (2019)
#306Earlier quoted context omitted.
Really. All right, I'm looking forward to the author of dickbutt stepping up and claiming what's theirs.
The author of the dickbutt (if he/she can be found) might easily sell the rights to their creation to a copyright troll for one million dollars after which my scenario could take place.
Re: I Miss the Old Internet (2019)
#307Re: I Miss the Old Internet (2019)
#308This sentiment of missing an older internet is one reason like like Hacker News. Slash dot was great in the day. Digg was so great in the day. Then the early days of Reddit were great. I’ve been her for over ten years and Hacker News is still good. So thank you to the team that runs Hacker News and everyone who comments for making it a good place to come to.
For me, HN suffers in the comparison to Slashdot, because HN is an example of the arguably overmoderated internet of today. Slashdot had a vibrant culture of troll posting. It wasn’t just dumb one-line slurs or whatever, which no one would want to see. Rather, it was often longform text crafted to a downright literary quality, to the point where many Slashdot regulars would choose to browse their discussion threads a…
HN is held hostage by people with a particular ideology and conformity, not just political, but across the board.
Re: I Miss the Old Internet (2019)
#309Sadly, it’s the people. The old internet had a filtering function where, because it was harder to use, people had to have some interest or skill to use it. So as a result, I think the proportion of people “online” had similar interest so more content was relevant and made by similar people. Now everyone is online with more diverse interests and capabilities.
I think that most of the filtering happened because different communities operated on different platforms rather than a single huge one like Reddit or Facebook. A small, old time discussion forum for a specific interest in my (rather small) language had only perhaps a hundred active participants and another few hundred casual posters. In that sort of environment it is actually possible for the actives to get to know…
What this means is that if you want good conversation on Keyboards, it better be about mechanical. Good conversation on coffee or want a new pair of headphones? Better be into audiophile equipment. There's no room for generalists who just want good enough. Overnight WallStreetBets went from an interesting community of people willing to gamble far more than I to a pile of garbage.
I'm beginning to think that Dunbar's number and the associated tribal splits are something that we should factor into our community building, and not try to work around through metrics and algorithms.
So HN does this aspect correct, by grouping by interest of a certain type of person, but even on HN as more people show up and post the same problems will become evident.
Re: I Miss the Old Internet (2019)
#310Earlier quoted context omitted.
How ironic. I agree, downvote-based discussions invariably lead to echo chambers / monocultures. See the dumpster fire that are reddit comments. At least on old-time forums there was no such bullshit (except post count :)).
If you don't have the ability to vote, you can't influence the content in a positive way either. Some comments are pointless, like some tool making the "and my axe" joke for the millionth time. Reddit lost its way when they started heavily moderating or banning entire subs that didn't fit with their woke US-centric world view, while rape porn was "fine". I closed my account a while back and stopped visiting the site,…